Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.In this day and age where the definition of freedom, hope, justice, and love seem to vary from person to person, and our definitions of what is right and wrong are as different as the day is long, it often makes me wonder if there will ever be a time-- or ever has been a time-- in which things are more black and white. Although dissent certainly existed, one time in history where more definite lines was during the civil war and the campaign to end slavery. Minds had changed; people were no longer counted as partial, or 3/5 of a person, and they belonged to no one except themselves and God.
The Gettysburg Address-- the principles advanced in the infamous speech-- given by President Abraham Lincoln on November 18, 1863-- lasted only two minutes. But it seemed to capture the essence of where as Americans have come, and where we sought to go. The sentences and phrases have hence been recited more times than one can conceivably count, and each day, someone draws inspiration from them. Lincoln's words of steel are appropriately memorialized in steel and have been implanted into the wall of Memorial Hall in Topeka and are the subject of today's picture.
With the help of God and open hearts and minds, hopefully someday we can once again see right from wrong, live in a time when the lines are unforgivably apparent, and again work together for something that is bigger than ourselves and more important than any of our individual souls.
